Underwater vessels, such as unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and torpedoes, are used in a variety of military applications, for example, surveillance, reconnaissance, navigation, and defense. Often, it is important to recover UUVs and torpedoes. For example, torpedoes are often deployed but not armed for a variety of military training or strategic purposes. After a UUV or a torpedo has completed its task, it is difficult to locate the underwater vessel because highly accurate global positioning system (GPS) location systems and radio frequency (RF) communications links are not available to underwater vessels. This makes the locating of an underwater vessel inaccurate resulting in a slow recovery and an increased likelihood the underwater vessel will be lost, damaged, or stolen.
Accordingly, there is a need and desire for an underwater vessel recovery method and system for providing accurate geo-location information to air, surface, and underwater stations thereby enabling the quick retrieval.